The effects of ambient pressure on soot formation in spray jet flames are investigated by means of a two-dimensional direct numerical simulation (DNS). In addition, the effects of precursors on soot formation are also discussed. The inception models considering acetylene and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) precursors are employed and compared in this study. The extended flamelet/progress-variable approach (EFPV) in which heat transfer between a droplet and the surrounding fluid can be considered is employed as a combustion model. Jet A is used as a liquid fuel with considering the detailed chemistry including 274 chemical species and 1537 elemental reactions by the flamelet library. The evaporating droplets' motions are tracked by the Lagrangian method and the non-equilibrium Langmuir-Knudsen model is used as an evaporation model. Results show that the spray jet flame structure and the soot formation characteristics are considerably affected by the ambient pressure condition. The soot volume fraction increases with increasing the ambient pressure. It is also revealed that the dominant process to promote the soot formation is different between the acetylene and PAH precursor models. It is essential to model a soot inception process with appropriate precursors in order to understand a detail mechanism of soot formation, since the precursor which plays the important role depends on the type of fuel and the combustion conditions. (C) 2014 The Society of Powder Technology Japan. Published by Elsevier B.V. and The Society of Powder Technology Japan. All rights reserved.